COMMUNITY COMPASS: PIGEON POST

Taipei City’s Department of Labor is inviting foreign workers to take part in the 2009 Foreign Workers’ Poetry & Essay Writing Competition to share their experiences of living in Taiwan. The contest is open to all foreign workers in Taiwan, and participants can submit their entries in any language. The winners of the “Poetry” and “Essay” categories will receive NT$10,000 prizes, and award-winning entries will be published in an anthology the department said. The word limit for the “Essay” category is 1,000 words. Submissions to the competition must be postmarked no later than April 30. Those interested in entering the contest should include their full name, address, passport number, telephone number, one photo and a short biography along with their work, and mail the package to Foreign Workers Counseling Service Center, 8F, No. 21, Section 1, Dihua Street, Taipei City 103. For more information call (02)2550-7229 or 2550-2151, ext. 212-214

Kaohsiung bureau seeks jobs for locals

A total of 13,392 foreign workers remain employed in Kaohsiung City, and companies forcing local workers to take unpaid leave will be targeted by the city to help ease the rising jobless rate, the city’s Bureau of Labor Affairs said on Thursday. The local manufacturing industry has the largest number of foreign workers, 6,502, followed by the care giving sector with 5,896 employees, statistics compiled by the bureau show. The highest number of foreign workers, 5,666, are from Indonesia, followed by the Philippines with 5,003, Vietnam with 2,365, and Thailand with 1,358, the figures show. To fight a growing jobless rate brought about by the ongoing economic downturn, the city’s labor affairs bureau has demanded that companies employ more local workers to fill new job vacancies, and that they repatriate foreign workers upon expiry of their contracts, bureau officials said. Several high-tech companies repatriated their foreign workers at the beginning of the year following this order, the bureau said.